Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler Pushes Congress To Support Music Modernization ACT

The music industry has had its issues over the past two decades. Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler just called on Congress to support the Music Modernization ACT. The order was just given to the Senate a month ago.

Aerosmith | Photo Credit Spotify

The musician and frontman believes that the act is the best way to protect the rights of songwriters and therefore, the industry as a whole. Basically, the act says that the music industry has failed to acknowledge technology in recent years.

Steven Tyler Talks About The Music Revolution

“Today’s songwriters face an uphill battle. If we don’t fix how music creators are paid by digital streaming services…” said Steven Tyler, “we may never hear the great songs of tomorrow.”

The frontman added, “As people who have been in this industry for a long time, we’ve seen the songwriters affected first hand.” Specifcally, Aerosmith is talking about music sites. Examples include Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music.

Currently, songs played on digital formats are not tracked in terms of plays. This is different from record sales or even radio plays.

Streaming Services Are Destroying Music (Again)

Napster | Photo Credit Verge

Steven Tyler added, “Streaming services like Spotify, Apple and Amazon offer fans an awesome thing – the ability to play whatever they want, whenever they want.” This has not ever happened before.

“But songwriters often aren’t seeing the benefits from their work being used to create and promote multi-billion-dollar technology companies.” Basically, the money from music does not get back to the songwriters.

Steve Miller just had a similar rant about the music industry as a whole. And, even Jackson Browne has commented on record companies not letting artist know about second printings of albums.

Basically, this problem isn’t new, but the “lack of information” is the real problem. Tyler concluded, “Currently, digital music companies attempt to find the ownership information for each song… And then pay those music publishers and songwriters. But, in reality, many times this doesn’t happen and this has led to millions in lost songwriter income.”

Brock Swinson is a contributor at MMN, Airows, and Creative Screenwriting Magazine. He is also the author of 'How Hollywood Screenwriters Annihilate Writer's Block,' which includes advice from Aaron Sorkin, William Monahan, and Cary Fukunaga. Get it for free or listen to interviews at the "Creative Principles with Brock Swinson" podcast on the website above.